Walter Buch
Encyclopedia
Walter Buch was a German
jurist
and SS-Obergruppenführer
war criminal, as well as being Martin Bormann's father in law.
, the son of a Senate President at the Baden
High Court, Buch became a soldier in the First World War as a career officer. In 1918, he was released from the army as a major and then busied himself in the Baden Veterans' League.
By 1922, he had already become a member of the NSDAP and in August 1923 in Nuremberg, leader of the SA
in Franconia
. In mid 1923, after Hermann Ehrhardt
on the one side and Ernst Röhm
and Adolf Hitler
on the other had fallen out with each other, the Stoßtrupp Adolf Hitler ("Adolf Hitler Raiding Patrol") was formed out of 12 SA members.
The Stoßtrupp was run by two former members of the Stabswache ("Staff Guard") who had also once belonged to the Brigade Ehrhardt
. The first leader was Julius Schreck
, who founded the SS
's forerunner organization, to which Buch also belonged. He thus found himself tied into the later SS and over time became an Honorary Leader of the SS ("Ehrenführer der SS ") with the rank of Obergruppenführer (under a new rank system brought in 1938, this became Stab Reichsführer SS).
After the so-called Beerhall Putsch failed on 9 November 1923, most SA leaders fled the country. Buch came back to Munich
as early as 13 November, sent by Hermann Göring
– who had fled to Innsbruck
– to ensure that the shaken Party troops' cohesion would not weaken. He also built up ties with the now outlawed SA groups, which could now only operate under cover.
Buch maintained regular contact between Hitler, who was sitting in prison now in Landsberg am Lech
, and the illegal Party leadership in Austria
. In the time that followed, when the NSDAP was banned, Göring's earlier fears began to come true as the party broke up. After Hitler's reëstablishment of the Party after his release from Landsberg, the Inquiry and Mediation Board (Untersuchungs- und Schlichtungs-Ausschuss or USCHLA), whose chairman Buch became in 1927, was also set up The Secret Party commission was also feared among the Party's followers because it behaved rather like a Party secret police force.
The USCHLA's headquarters were at the Braunes Haus ("Brown House") in Munich and internally it was even likened to the Cheka
. Buch did not confine himself merely to rulings in internal Party disputes, but also had Party members monitored or put under pressure if they strayed from the Party line. The Board could render judgments freely within the country and without, against which there was no appeal, except by Hitler.
On 2 September 1929, then SS member and later Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann
wed Walter Buch's daughter Gerda (born 23 October 1909 in Konstanz
). Buch and Hitler were witnesses.
In the time that followed, until the Nazis seized power
, Buch continually strengthened his status. In 1934, he described the importance of Party tribunals thus:
Buch acted quite like this. At the so-called Röhm Putsch, he travelled at Hitler's behest to Bad Wiessee
and was present at Ernst Röhm's arrest and allegedly also at his shooting at Stadelheim Prison
in Munich.
By way of thanks for having given Röhm's murder the outward appearance of legality, Buch was made the supreme Party magistrate and an SS Gruppenführer
on 9 November 1934.
In 1936 it was claimed in an anonymous letter that Buch was married to a half-Jew. In the course of a Gestapo
investigation it came to light that the letter had been written by Wilhelm Kube
, whom Buch had investigated owing to concerns over his private life and his leadership style in the Kurmark Gau. Buch saw to it that Kube was removed from all his posts. Only on Hitler's orders was he allowed to remain a Gauleiter
, albeit without his own Gau.
Buch was also responsible for the "legalization" of Party members' excesses during the so-called Kristallnacht
(9 November 1938). He declared after his investigation that the "small Party comrades" who were responsible for more than a hundred Jews' deaths had only been following orders.
However, he found no need to question those who had given these orders, such was his deep-seated Anti-Semitism
, and he publicly brought the law for Jews into question. In his opinion, Jews were literally "not humans".
After the war, Buch was seized and sentenced to five years in a labour camp. In July 1949, in the course of yet another wave of Denazification
, he was classified as a "Hauptschuldiger" ("main guilty one"), meaning that he was considered to be among those who were "guiltiest" of war crimes. On 12 November, he ended his own life by slitting his wrists and throwing himself into the Ammersee
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
jurist
Jurist
A jurist or jurisconsult is a professional who studies, develops, applies, or otherwise deals with the law. The term is widely used in American English, but in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries it has only historical and specialist usage...
and SS-Obergruppenführer
Obergruppenführer
Obergruppenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the SA and until 1942 it was the highest SS rank inferior only to Reichsführer-SS...
war criminal, as well as being Martin Bormann's father in law.
Life
Born in BruchsalBruchsal
Bruchsal is a city at the western edge of the Kraichgau, approximately 20 km northeast of Karlsruhe in the state of Baden-Württemberg, Germany...
, the son of a Senate President at the Baden
Baden
Baden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
High Court, Buch became a soldier in the First World War as a career officer. In 1918, he was released from the army as a major and then busied himself in the Baden Veterans' League.
By 1922, he had already become a member of the NSDAP and in August 1923 in Nuremberg, leader of the SA
Sturmabteilung
The Sturmabteilung functioned as a paramilitary organization of the National Socialist German Workers' Party . It played a key role in Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the 1920s and 1930s...
in Franconia
Franconia
Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...
. In mid 1923, after Hermann Ehrhardt
Hermann Ehrhardt
Hermann Ehrhardt was a German Freikorps commander during the period of turmoil in Weimar Republic Germany from 1918 to 1920, he commanded the famous II.Marine Brigade, better known as the Ehrhardt Brigade or Marinebrigade Ehrhardt.Born in Diersburg, now part of Hohberg, Baden-Württemberg, he later...
on the one side and Ernst Röhm
Ernst Röhm
Ernst Julius Röhm, was a German officer in the Bavarian Army and later an early Nazi leader. He was a co-founder of the Sturmabteilung , the Nazi Party militia, and later was its commander...
and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
on the other had fallen out with each other, the Stoßtrupp Adolf Hitler ("Adolf Hitler Raiding Patrol") was formed out of 12 SA members.
The Stoßtrupp was run by two former members of the Stabswache ("Staff Guard") who had also once belonged to the Brigade Ehrhardt
Marinebrigade Ehrhardt
The Marinebrigade Ehrhardt was a Free Corps group of around 6,000 men formed by Captain Hermann Ehrhardt in the aftermath of World War I, also known as II Marine Brigade or the Ehrhardt Brigade...
. The first leader was Julius Schreck
Julius Schreck
Julius Schreck was an early Nazi Party member and also the first commander of the Schutzstaffel .-Biography:...
, who founded the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
's forerunner organization, to which Buch also belonged. He thus found himself tied into the later SS and over time became an Honorary Leader of the SS ("Ehrenführer der SS ") with the rank of Obergruppenführer (under a new rank system brought in 1938, this became Stab Reichsführer SS).
After the so-called Beerhall Putsch failed on 9 November 1923, most SA leaders fled the country. Buch came back to Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
as early as 13 November, sent by Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
– who had fled to Innsbruck
Innsbruck
- Main sights :- Buildings :*Golden Roof*Kaiserliche Hofburg *Hofkirche with the cenotaph of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor*Altes Landhaus...
– to ensure that the shaken Party troops' cohesion would not weaken. He also built up ties with the now outlawed SA groups, which could now only operate under cover.
Buch maintained regular contact between Hitler, who was sitting in prison now in Landsberg am Lech
Landsberg am Lech
Landsberg am Lech is a town in southwest Bavaria, Germany, about 65 kilometers west of Munich and 35 kilometers south of Augsburg. It is the capital of the district of Landsberg am Lech....
, and the illegal Party leadership in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. In the time that followed, when the NSDAP was banned, Göring's earlier fears began to come true as the party broke up. After Hitler's reëstablishment of the Party after his release from Landsberg, the Inquiry and Mediation Board (Untersuchungs- und Schlichtungs-Ausschuss or USCHLA), whose chairman Buch became in 1927, was also set up The Secret Party commission was also feared among the Party's followers because it behaved rather like a Party secret police force.
The USCHLA's headquarters were at the Braunes Haus ("Brown House") in Munich and internally it was even likened to the Cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
. Buch did not confine himself merely to rulings in internal Party disputes, but also had Party members monitored or put under pressure if they strayed from the Party line. The Board could render judgments freely within the country and without, against which there was no appeal, except by Hitler.
On 2 September 1929, then SS member and later Hitler's secretary, Martin Bormann
Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann was a prominent Nazi official. He became head of the Party Chancellery and private secretary to Adolf Hitler...
wed Walter Buch's daughter Gerda (born 23 October 1909 in Konstanz
Konstanz
Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...
). Buch and Hitler were witnesses.
In the time that followed, until the Nazis seized power
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...
, Buch continually strengthened his status. In 1934, he described the importance of Party tribunals thus:
- "The Party tribunals always have themselves to consider as the iron fasteners that hold together the proud building of the NSDAP, which political leaders and SA leaders have built up. Saving it from cracks and shocks is the Party tribunals' grandest task. The Party magistrates are bound only to their National Socialist conscience, and are no political leader's subordinates, and they are subject only to the Führer."
Buch acted quite like this. At the so-called Röhm Putsch, he travelled at Hitler's behest to Bad Wiessee
Bad Wiessee
Bad Wiessee is a spa town on Lake Tegernsee, Bavaria, Germany. The name "Bad" means for "spa" or "baths", while "Wiessee" derives from "West See", meaning "western part of the lake"....
and was present at Ernst Röhm's arrest and allegedly also at his shooting at Stadelheim Prison
Stadelheim Prison
Stadelheim Prison, in Munich's Giesing district, is one of the largest prisons in Germany.Founded in 1894 it was the site of many executions, particularly by guillotine during the Nazi period.-Notable inmates:...
in Munich.
By way of thanks for having given Röhm's murder the outward appearance of legality, Buch was made the supreme Party magistrate and an SS Gruppenführer
Gruppenführer
Gruppenführer was an early paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party, first created in 1925 as a senior rank of the SA.-SS rank:...
on 9 November 1934.
In 1936 it was claimed in an anonymous letter that Buch was married to a half-Jew. In the course of a Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
investigation it came to light that the letter had been written by Wilhelm Kube
Wilhelm Kube
Wilhelm Kube was a German politician and Nazi official. He was an important figure in the German Christian movement during the early years of Nazi rule. During the war he became a senior official in the occupying government of the Soviet Union, achieving the rank of Generalkommissar for...
, whom Buch had investigated owing to concerns over his private life and his leadership style in the Kurmark Gau. Buch saw to it that Kube was removed from all his posts. Only on Hitler's orders was he allowed to remain a Gauleiter
Gauleiter
A Gauleiter was the party leader of a regional branch of the NSDAP or the head of a Gau or of a Reichsgau.-Creation and Early Usage:...
, albeit without his own Gau.
Buch was also responsible for the "legalization" of Party members' excesses during the so-called Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
(9 November 1938). He declared after his investigation that the "small Party comrades" who were responsible for more than a hundred Jews' deaths had only been following orders.
However, he found no need to question those who had given these orders, such was his deep-seated Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, and he publicly brought the law for Jews into question. In his opinion, Jews were literally "not humans".
After the war, Buch was seized and sentenced to five years in a labour camp. In July 1949, in the course of yet another wave of Denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
, he was classified as a "Hauptschuldiger" ("main guilty one"), meaning that he was considered to be among those who were "guiltiest" of war crimes. On 12 November, he ended his own life by slitting his wrists and throwing himself into the Ammersee
Ammersee
Ammersee is a lake in Upper Bavaria, Germany located southwest of Munich between the towns of Herrsching and Dießen am Ammersee. With a surface area of approximately , it is the sixth largest lake in Germany. The lake is located at an elevation of , and has a maximum depth of . Like other Bavarian...
.